LETTER: Public doing own policing

Published:14:49Thursday 21 September 2017

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The Chief Constable of Sussex Police, Giles York, has been reported in the Herald as saying that it is more convenient for business owners to fill in their own witness forms and submit their own documents and CCTV if they have been hit by criminal activity.

He also said that people often don’t need to speak to the police directly and that they can report crimes online, via the force’s website, or via email. Mr York believes that this is far more convenient for us and can be managed more efficiently by his officers.

Mr York and his command team of four other officers earn, between them, getting on for £800,000 a year.

And for what? To get their heads together and come up with a strategy that boils down to telling the public to do their own policing?

On top of that he said that he didn’t think that seven minutes was at all long for us to wait for a 101 non-emergency call to be answered. What sort of world does this man live in?

We are constantly being told that official crime figures are falling. Of course they are, because many people hang up long before the seven minutes have expired and, therefore, the actual numbers of committed crimes never gets recorded.

The Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner, holds a performance and accountability meeting with the chief constable most Fridays. Perhaps, at the next one, Mrs Bourne can come to a decision as to whether or not her chief constable is earning his £197,000 a year salary and, if not, get someone else in who can police our county without expecting the public to solve the crimes that, he says, his 5,500 members of staff don’t have the time to do.